With the marathon last week and the snow this week, I sort of forgot to post about golf round 28. On October 1, I played a free round with my neighbor at Crystal Lake Golf Club in Lakeville. We both had coupons for a free mid-week round that we had received at the Guide Dogs tournament this summer.

It was rainy, cold and windy, but a free round is a free round, right? We actually only got rained on for two holes and pretty much had the entire course to ourselves. I didn’t play that great, shooting 92 from the 5,827 yard white tees (68.7/127). I also had a $25 gift card from last year’s tournament that we used for lunch afterwards.

I’ve got one more planned tee time this year on Saturday – hopefully it will warm up enough to get that one in…

My last two rounds of golf have been all about the social aspect of the game. Last weekend I was invited to play Southview Country Club with Tapemark Charity Pro-Am president Phil Callen, while Monday was guest day at Mendakota Country Club, hosted by my friend and former Northwest Airlines colleague Phil Keeney.

Saturday afternoon at Southview was a perfect day for fall golf – sunny skies, cool temperatures and a very light breeze. I was surprised to find the course so empty – we played 18 holes in about 3 hours. I played the front nine well, shooting 43 with two doubles and four pars. I also hit the purest five-iron I’ve ever hit on the ninth hole. Too bad it flew the green, bounced across the putting green and almost hit the parking lot fence…

The back nine was much tougher for me, but also included a few bad breaks. Phil played well, especially considering he just opened a new play the night before (Bill W. & Dr. Bob at the Illusion Theater in Minneapolis). I ended up with a 92 from the whites (6,121 yards, 71.0/136), while Phil had a 97.

The weather Monday at Mendakota was straight out of the British Isles – winds gusting to 45mph, temps in the low 50s and a spot of rain here and there. There were a lot of cancellations, but I was ready to play in multiple layers of clothing. We were joined by two other former Northwest revenue people – Gary Zehnder (refunds) and Mark Bodurtha (agency sales).

This was the first time I’ve played Mendakota since the changes on the back nine. The par five thirteenth hole had major changes that I really liked (removed trees, new target fairway bunker, green-side updates), as did the par four sixteenth hole (lengthened, green pushed back towards pond). Changes were also made to the par three fourteenth (new back tee) and the par four eighteenth (tees moved). I didn’t take my camera with due to the weather, but I’ll get shots of these changes soon.

My former pro-am partner (and Mendakota head professional) Dale Jones wasn’t in the shop Monday, but the rest of the Mendakota staff was very friendly and the food service before and after our round was superb. Despite the weather (and getting my butt kicked in the two-man scramble), it was really fun visiting and recollecting old NWA days in building B.

Thanks again to Phil and Phil for the invitations.

7MM Southview Photo Gallery | 7MM Mendakota Photo Gallery

Yesterday I played in the Spare Key Golf Benefit at Willingers Golf Club in Northfield. Spare Key is a Bloomington-based non-profit organization that “provides assistance to Minnesota homeowners with critically ill or seriously injured children by making a mortgage payment on the family’s behalf, allowing them to spend time with their child.”

The driving range and silent auction for the event opened at 10:30AM, with a shotgun start at 1PM. The club was selling food for lunch before and a buffet dinner was included afterwards (that I had to skip out on). The silent auction has some nice items, including rounds at Hazeltine and Legends Club, a signed Y.E. Yang flag from the PGA and a diamond pendant from Tiffany & Co.

After nine years of working with the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am, I always find it interesting to see how other charity golf events are run. This event was a more traditional, one-day golf scramble with a shotgun start, so it’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison.

I’m not a big fan of scrambles for several reasons: 1) I like to play my own ball, 2) play is always so slow and 3) we never score well when handicaps aren’t used. Our round took a little more than five hours and we played terrible, finishing with a tournament-worst 73 (+1). That included bogeys on six, eight and sixteen and birdies on nine and thirteen. Not all the scores were in when I left, but 58 was leading (-14).

The volunteers were all very nice and the organizers did a great job with the sold out event. I took a peek at the silent auction table before I left and it appeared Spare Key raised a lot amount of money for the cause.

Special thanks to Jeff Miller and his wife Deb for the invitation.

Today was the women’s edition of the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am at Southview Country Club in West St. Paul. The weather forecast didn’t look great, but the rain broke up before it got to the metro area and the sun peeked out for most of the afternoon.

A record 142 golfers teed off for the 1PM shotgun start, which was proceeded by a nice buffet lunch prepared by the excellent Southview staff. Following the round, golfers gathered in the St. Andrews room for dinner and the awards ceremony. Here are the winners of the various flights:

• Championship: White-Beutel, 73
• First: Bixby-Shivers, 80
• Second: Hynan-Jeannette, 86 (tie breaker)
• Third: Begich-Swenson, 86
• Fourth: Hauff-Scheffler, 91
• Fun: Britton-Megan, 83

7MM 2009 Women’s Tapemark Photo Gallery

Golf is such a fickle game – after struggling to break 100 a few weeks ago, I visit Highland National in St. Paul last week and shoot a lifetime best score for 18 holes.

Granted, the 6,204-yard white tees, with their 70.3 rating and 128 slope, isn’t quite the same as playing from the tips at Hazeltine. The new design does have a fair amount of water, though, and you still need to hit the shots.

My favorite hole this time was the 405 yard, par four seventh hole. I pushed a drive to the left, with a large tree blocking my approach shot to the green. I hit a nice iron shot, but it clipped the top of the tree and dropped straight down. Still about 100 yards out with some branches in the way, I hit a low 7-iron shot that landed short of the green, then rolled up and in the cup for a birdie three.

Even with a three-putt on the par three fourth hole and a double on the par five twelfth, I shot a 40-41-81 (+9) to beat my previous best by one stroke (82s at Crystal Lake in 2000 and Hidden Greens in 2008).

The weather was perfect, with fog rising from the ponds during our early morning start. It looked like the greens had a deep tine process done recently, which didn’t effect putting nearly as much as normal aeration with top-dressing. The grounds crew was applying a lot of chemicals on each green in front us all morning, though.

The clubhouse had a power outage the previous night, so we weren’t able to pay until after the round. The weekday walking rate is $30 now, which we decided is just about right.

7MM Highland National Photo Gallery

Last week I decided to take my wonderful friend and lawyer Kevin Johnson out for a round of golf. When he said he had never played the Meadows at Mystic Lake, I called them up and booked a tee time right away. Wednesday also happened to be the first day of their fall “spin the wheel” promotion, so our rounds were a great deal too (although they replaced the old wooden wheel with a computerized version that just isn’t the same).

I’ve already written about the Meadows course this year, so I’ll just add that the new waterfall behind the seventh green is fully functional (see above) and they just aerated and top-dressed all of the greens. The wild flowers around the course were beautiful and we practically had the course to ourselves. We both played OK and had a wonderful lunch at the Meadows Grille after the round. I think the Grille is one of the best kept secrets in the whole complex – great food and great service.

7MM Meadows at Mystic Lake Photo Gallery